[casual_games] Issues to think about in the casual game space -subsciptions and ARPU

[James Gwertzman]

Good catch, James.

 

You are right - I meant to define ARPU as "average revenue per user" not
unit.

 

As for "all you can eat" subscriptions, I've essentially convinced
myself by this point that all-you-can eat subscriptions have a place
alongside other business models, and that if they are designed correctly
they generated additional revenue vs. taking away revenue. Users segment
into many different categories, and the goal is to have a business model
designed for each category.

 

I do believe, however, that windowing can be used to minimize such
possible cannibalization and we try wherever we can to window new
content appropriately. It's the same as web-games; we do not release web
games at the same time we release download games for a reason as well.
There are users who might only play the web game if it were released the
same day as the download game, so we hold back the web game for 4-6
weeks... then when sales naturally start to flag of the original d/l
game to the early adopters we launch the web game to reach to the next
segment of users.

 

---------------------------

James Gwertzman

Director of Business Development

PopCap Games, Inc.

+1-206-256-4210

________________________________

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of James C. Smith
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:18 AM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Issues to think about in the casual game
space -subsciptions and ARPU

 

You bring up many great questions. But rather than trying to answer any
one of them, I have whole different question and also a question about
one of your questions. :-)

        

 

I am surprised you didn't mention "all you can eat" subscriptions.  A
year ago this was a big concern among many developers and publishers as
many retailers were venturing into this area.  We were all talking about
"windowing" as a possible solution.  What ever happened with this issue?
It didn't even make you list of 10 issue concerning the future of our
industry.  Did we solve this one or did it just become irrelevant?

 

Now my nitpick:  In question 4 you define ARPU as average revenue per
unit.  Is this intentional?  I usually see ARPU defined as average
revenue per user. Per user seems to make more sense in this context than
per unit.  Obviously changing the price of the game would change the
revenue per unit, but I think the point is a about maximizing the
average revenue user even if it means lowering the revenue per unit.
With a lower price, each user (demo player) is more likely to purchase
more games, or more likely to purchase any game at.  Thus lower revenue
per unit could lead to a higher average revenue per user. Or maybe
higher revenue per unit would lead to higher average revenue per user.
The point is, isn't it really just all about average revenue per user?

 

James C. Smith

Reflexive Entertainment

	 

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